AN INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC RESPONSE TO SOME ATENEO DE MANILA PROFESSORS’ STATEMENT ON REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
‘THE PRO-RH FACULTY MEMBERS ARE GRAVELY MISTAKEN --- NO CATHOLIC CAN IN GOOD CONSCIENCE SUPPORT HOUSE BILL 5043.’
--- 42 theologians, philosophers, and professors of law, economics, demography, sociology, medicine and political science in 17 universities, six major seminaries and centers of theological studies, and one international think tank in the United States, Britain, Spain, Poland and the Middle East
OPEN LETTER
"House Bill 5043 on “Reproductive Health and Population Development” has occasioned intense debate in the Philippines and was recently the subject of a position paper drafted by 14 members of the faculty of the Ateneo de Manila University. In their statement, these faculty members stated their belief that the bill adheres “to core principles of Catholic social teaching: the sanctity of human life, the dignity of the human person, the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, integral human development, human rights, and the primacy of conscience.” They believe these conditions of Catholic social teaching are met in Bill 5043. We, the undersigned Catholic academics, assert, however, that these Ateneo faculty are gravely mistaken in their presentation of the Church’s teaching.
"The primary reason for these Ateneo faculty members´ support of the bill seems to stem from their deep commitment to the Church’s long-held “preferential option for the poor.” Their position paper describes, heart-wrenchingly, the situation of the poor in the Philippines. High maternal mortality rates, inadequate and uneven provision of basic health care, lack of birth attendants, and lack of reproductive health information: such situations place an undue burden on the poor, and in particular on women. These women, like all women, desire to determine the number and spacing of their children, and ensure that proper nutrition, health care, and education can be provided for each member of their families. As Catholics, we have a clear obligation to ensure that all persons, particularly the poor, have the ability to exercise these basic freedoms.
"As Catholic academics, we agree that we must support civic and governmental initiatives that can aid the poor. Nevertheless, a Catholic cannot support the Reproductive Health and Population Development bill in good conscience, because the primary provisions of the bill not only fail to recognize and support the dignity of the poor, but also stand in direct opposition to Catholic social teaching. The bill focuses primarily on providing services to curb the number of children of the poor, while doing little to remedy their situation, provide necessary health care or establish the grounds for sound economic development.
"A few citations will serve to show how clear and unambiguous is the Church’s care for the dignity of the person, and in particular the poor, and how critical it is for us to heed her teachings in addressing the circumstances facing the Philippines today.
"Rerum Novarum opens with the powerful reminder that “Man precedes the state” and for that reason should not be subject to the state’s regulation of his private matters. Populorum Progressio reiterates this sentiment, stating: "No solution . . . is acceptable which does violence to man's essential dignity; those who propose such solutions base them on an utterly materialistic conception of man himself and his life. The only possible solution to this question is one which envisages the social and economic progress both of individuals and of the whole of human society, and which respects and promotes true human values."
"Perhaps no document speaks more powerfully in opposition to the main ideas in this bill than Humanae Vitae: “Therefore we base our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when we are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the Magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary.”
“In reply to the claim that reproductive rights, contraception and sterilization are required in order to help the poor limit their family size and thus aid the poor by reducing the numbers of mouths to feed, Humanae Vitae states: “Others ask on the same point whether it is not reasonable in so many cases to use artificial birth control if by so doing the harmony and peace of a family are better served and more suitable conditions are provided for the education of children already born. To this question we must give a clear reply. The Church is the first to praise and commend the application of human intelligence to an activity in which a rational creature such as man is so closely associated with his Creator. But she affirms that this must be done within the limits of the order of reality established by God.”
"Artificial contraception can never be accepted by the Church as an action in conformity with the dignity of the human person because “each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.” Further, it is never valid to argue, “as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, ” as the authors of the position paper seem to suggest. While applauding efforts in the bill to provide information on both artificial and natural forms of family planning, the position paper then asserts that provision of contraceptives as essential medicines and fully covered sterilizations for indigent patients are measures that promote quality of life. This statement directly contradicts Catholic teaching, which recognizes the use and promotion of artificial contraception and sterilization as intrinsically evil. Such actions can never be promoted or justified. “It is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it – in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, or a family or of society in general. Consequently it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong. ”
“The Church does not hold these positions to punish the poor, but rather because she recognizes that the poor have the same inviolable dignity and rights that all human persons share. What the poor need is not contraception and sterilization, but to experience authentic solidarity with those who, in responding to their innate dignity, work with the poor to enable them to develop their skills, improve their circumstances and cultivate lives that are marked by both interior and exterior freedom. This places a much more radical demand on those of us to whom much has been given (Luke 12:48); we must live and work with the poor in order to identify and enable the resources they require to live lives of authentic freedom.
"Finally, Humanae Vitae warns us that "[c]areful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.”
“These statements of the Church and Magisterium have been retained in all subsequent documents and reiterated in documents too numerous to cite here. These few, but clear, passages make it abundantly clear that no Catholic can in good conscience support Bill 5043. This Bill violates the Church’s teachings in the gravest manner. ”Maternal and ObGyn health
“Finally, it must be emphasized that there are two sections in the bill that should be applauded and expanded. Both Section 6 and Section 7 call for the expansion of midwives and birth attendants, as well as greater access to obstetric care. Such measures are critical to reducing maternal mortality and making progress toward the Millennium Development Goals, particularly MDG 5 (maternal health) and MDG 4 (infant health). Healthy mothers are the critical factor in assuring infant and child health.
"Unfortunately, these two sections are the weakest in the bill. Most of the reproductive health proposals of the bill are mandatory and supported through financial means, as well as through the creation of new government agencies to assure implementation. Sections 6 and 7 of the Bill, which provide the only concrete health care and services to prevent or eliminate maternal mortality, are not mandatory, and the bill earmarks neither institutional support systems nor finances for their implementation. The POPCOM, which is established in Section 5 to implement and oversee the commitments outlined in the bill, has nine specific areas related to reproductive health and reproductive health services, yet no explicit mention of any responsibility in the area of maternal and ObGyn care. This most important section of the bill - and the only section actually consistent with Catholic social teaching - has been entirely neglected in the allocation of responsibilities to the agency established to oversee its implementation.
“A bill that responds to the situation of the poor requires us to respond to their full range of needs in order to facilitate integral improvement in their quality of life. This necessitates the creation of laws that guarantee the adoption of measures, at the national and local levels, that will lead to improved access to authentic development including the provision of basic health care and access to quality education. It is measures such as these that will enable the poor to develop and thrive, and that will affirm and respect the dignity of each and every human person. This bill stops short of assuring implementation of needed medical care, while emphasizing the adoption of measures that deny the dignity and freedom of the poor. As Catholics we have a moral duty to defend and support the poor; we must demand more from our legislators and from ourselves, placing ourselves at the service of poor, ready to commit to the necessary work, sacrifice and solidarity needed to establish and build societies that will respond to authentic needs while respecting the dignity and freedom of every human person.”
Signatories as of Nov 12, 2008
1. Prof Janet E. Smith
Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics
Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit, MI.
2. Robert G Kennedy, PhD
Professor and Chair
Department of Catholic Studies
Co-Director
Terrence J Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy
University of St Thomas
Mail #55-S
St Paul, MN 55105
3. Richard S. Myers
Professor of Law
Ave Maria School of Law
3475 Plymouth Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2550
4. Romanus Cessario, O.P.
Professor of Theology
Saint John's Seminary
Boston, Massachusetts
5. Rev. Joseph W. Koterski, S.J.
Department of Philosophy
Fordham University
Bronx, NY 10458 USA
6. Theresa Notare, PhD
Assistant Director
Natural Family Planning Program
Secretariat for Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th St., N.E.
Washington, DC 20017
7. Fr. Basil Cole, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
487 Michigan Ave NE
Washington DC 20017
bbcole@dhs.edu
8. E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.
Associate Professor of Moral Theology
Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary
Denver, Colorado 80210, USA
9. SC Selner-Wright, PhD
Acting Chair, Philosophy Department
Acting Director, Pre-Theology Cycle
St. John Vianney Theological Seminary
Denver, Colorado USA
10. Dr. Mary Healy
Associate Professor of Sacred Scripture
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
2701 Chicago Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48206
11. Ångela Aparisi Miralles
Philosophy of Law Professor
Directora - Instituto de Derechos Humanos
Universidad de Navarra
12. Michael Rota
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
University of St. Thomas
St. Paul, MN
13. Michael Scaperlanda
Associate Dean for Research
Edwards Family Chair in Law
University of Oklahoma College of Law
14. Richard Stith J.D.(Yale), Ph.D.(Yale)
Professor of Law
Valparaiso University School of Law
656 South Greenwich St.
Valparaiso, IN 46383-4945
USA
15. Patrick Quirk
Associate Professor
Ave Maria School of Law
3475 Plymouth Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105-2550
16. Fr. Earl Muller, S.J.
Kevin M. Britt Chair in Theology/Christology
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
Detroit, MI, USA
17. Professor David Paton
Chair of Industrial Economics
Nottingham University Business School
Jubilee Campus
Wollaton Road
Nottingham NG8 1BB
United Kingdom
18. Dr. Eduardo J. Echeverria
Professor of Philosophy
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
2701 Chicago Blvd
Detroit, MI 48206
19. Jane Adolphe
Associate Professor of Law
Ave Maria School of Law
Ann Arbor, Michigan
USA, 48105
20. Teresa S. Collett
Professor of Law
University of St. Thomas School of Law
MSL 400, 1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2015
21. David Braine,
Honorary Research Fellow,
Department of Philosophy,
University of Aberdeen, UK.
22. Dr. Helen Watt
Director
Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics
London
23. Ligia M. De Jesus
Assistant Professor of Law
Ave Maria School of Law
3475 Plymouth Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2550
USA
24. Jacqueline M. Nolan-Haley
Professor of Law
Director, ADR & Conflict Resolution Program
Fordham Law School
140 W. 62nd Street
New York, New York 10023
25. William E.May
Michael J.McGivney Professor of Moral Theology
John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family
Washington DC
26. Evelyn (Timmie) Birge Vitz
Professor of French, New York University
Affiliated Professor of Comparative Literature, Medieval
and Renaissance Studies, and Religious Studies
19 University Place, #623, New York, NY 10003
27. Mary M. Keys
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
USA
28. Mark E. Ginter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Moral Theology
Saint Meinrad School of Theology
200 Hill Drive
St. Meinrad, IN 47577
29. Father Daniel J. Trapp
Professor of Sacramental Theology
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
2701 Chicago Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48206
30. Maria Fedoryka
Philosophy Department of Ave Maria University
Ave Maria, FL.
31. Dr Dermot Grenham
Graduate Teaching Assistant
London School of Economics
London
32. Dr. Michael Pakaluk
Professor of Philosophy
Institute for the Psychological Sciences
Arlington, VA 22101
33. Timothy Flanigan MD
Professor of Medicine
Brown University Medical School
34. Gerard Bradley
School of Law
Notre Dame University
35. Adrian J. Reimers
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy
208 Malloy Hall
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
574-631-7384
36. Daniel Philpott
Associate Professor, Political Science and Joan B. Kroc Institute
for International Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame
37. Aneta Gawkowska
Assistant Professor, Sociology
University of Warsaw
38. Tom D’Andrea
Philosophy
Cambridge University
39. Peter Kreeft
Philosophy
Boston College
40. J. Budziszewski
Departments of Government and Philosophy
University of Texas at Austin
41. Habib Malik
Department of History, Lebanese American University
Beirut
42. Nicholas Eberstadt
Political Economy
American Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C.
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
An international response to the Ateneo “professors”
(First posted 8 Nov 2008, last updated 12 Nov 2008)
I have just received by email a copy of a statement signed (as of now) by 42 international Catholic scholars, mostly from the United States, but also from the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain and the Middle East, commenting on the recent declaration by some individual faculty members of the Ateneo de Manila University that Catholics can “in good conscience” support House Bill 5043 on “reproductive health,” even though its main proposals directly contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church.
The statement of the 42 international scholars says the Ateneo “professors” are gravely mistaken in their “presentation” of Church teaching, and that no Catholic can in good conscience support HB 5043.
The list includes world renowned theologians Janet Smith and William May; philosopher and author Peter Kreeft; the highly respected demographer Nicholas Eberstadt; a well-known Jesuit philosophy professor at Fordham University; the Jesuit chair of Theology and Christology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit; a lady professor of law at Fordham; a lady associate professor of political science at University of Notre Dame; a lady professor of the philosophy of law and director of the Institute of Human Rights at the University of Navarre; an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Warsaw; a philosophy professor at Cambridge University; the chair of industrial economics at Nottingham University; a graduate teaching assistant at London School of Economics; a research fellow in philosophy at the University of Aberdeen; the lady director of a center for Healthcare Ethics in London; the professor-son of Lebanese philosopher and “brains” of the United Nations Charles Malik in Beirut; and distinguished professors of law, philosophy and theology in various American universities and seminaries.
This response from abroad shows that it is hardly possible for any “Catholic academic” anywhere to make any loose statement about the teaching of the Catholic Church without eventually hearing from serious scholars who have devoted their lives trying to understand and live Catholic teaching, away from the ideological pull of institutions and agencies engaged in the global business of population control and “reproductive health.”
I am informed the statement has been sent directly to the Philippine media, in the hope of getting the same space and time they had given to the Ateneo faculty statement. I am sure the editors will recognize its distinct merit, and give it the same space and time it deserves.
However, I reproduce here the text of the statement and its signatories for the reader’s information, especially if our expectation of fair play from the media proves excessive. Catholic academics who recognize the statement’s merit may also want to manifest their solidarity and support by signing in.
The truth must prevail.
November 4, 2008
[1] Encyclical letter Populorum Progressio, nos. 48-55: AAS 59 (1967), 281-284
[2] Encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, nos 14-15, (1968)
[3] Ibid, no. 16
[4] Ibid, no. 12
[5] Ibid, no. 14
[6] “Catholics can Support the RH Bill in Good Conscience”, Position paper on the Reproductive Health Bill by individual faculty of the Ateneo de Manila University, pp. 2-7, 15 October, 2008
[7] Humane Vitae, no 14
[8] Paul VI is referring to the control of reproduction and artificial contraception when he talks of “this power” being put in the hands of the state. This passage follows directly on a passage in which he discusses the problems artificial contraception poses within the marital union, and then expands to the consideration of problems that will result if the state is given the authority to regulate conception and birth.
[9] Humanae Vitae, no 17
[10] The Church's teaching on marriage and human procreation affirms the "inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and of woman."(38) This principle, which is based upon the nature of marriage and the intimate connection of the goods of marriage, has well-known consequences on the level of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. "By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man's exalted vocation to parenthood."(39) The same doctrine concerning the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and between the goods of marriage throws light on the moral problem of homologous artificial fertilization, since "it is never permitted to separate these different aspects to such a degree as positively to exclude either the procreative intention or the conjugal relation." (40) Contraception deliberately deprives the conjugal act of its openness to procreation and in this way brings about a voluntary dissociation of the ends of marriage." The Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith quoting Humanae Vitae and Pope Pius XII in its "Instruction on the respect for Human Life and on the Dignity of Procreation" Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, February 22, 1987
[11] As cited in the Ateneo position paper, page 2.
1. Prof Janet E. Smith
Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics
Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit, MI.
2. Robert G Kennedy, PhD
Professor and Chair
Department of Catholic Studies
Co-Director
Terrence J Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy
University of St Thomas
Mail #55-S
St Paul, MN 55105
3. Richard S. Myers
Professor of Law
Ave Maria School of Law
3475 Plymouth Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2550
4. Romanus Cessario, O.P.
Professor of Theology
Saint John's Seminary
Boston, Massachusetts
5. Rev. Joseph W. Koterski, S.J.
Department of Philosophy
Fordham University
Bronx, NY 10458 USA
6. Theresa Notare, PhD
Assistant Director
Natural Family Planning Program
Secretariat for Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th St., N.E.
Washington, DC 20017
7. Fr. Basil Cole, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
487 Michigan Ave NE
Washington DC 20017
bbcole@dhs.edu
8. E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.
Associate Professor of Moral Theology
Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary
Denver, Colorado 80210, USA
9. SC Selner-Wright, PhD
Acting Chair, Philosophy Department
Acting Director, Pre-Theology Cycle
St. John Vianney Theological Seminary
Denver, Colorado USA
10. Dr. Mary Healy
Associate Professor of Sacred Scripture
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
2701 Chicago Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48206
11. Ångela Aparisi Miralles
Philosophy of Law Professor
Directora - Instituto de Derechos Humanos
Universidad de Navarra
12. Michael Rota
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
University of St. Thomas
St. Paul, MN
13. Michael Scaperlanda
Associate Dean for Research
Edwards Family Chair in Law
University of Oklahoma College of Law
14. Richard Stith J.D.(Yale), Ph.D.(Yale)
Professor of Law
Valparaiso University School of Law
656 South Greenwich St.
Valparaiso, IN 46383-4945
USA
15. Patrick Quirk
Associate Professor
Ave Maria School of Law
3475 Plymouth Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105-2550
16. Fr. Earl Muller, S.J.
Kevin M. Britt Chair in Theology/Christology
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
Detroit, MI, USA
17. Professor David Paton
Chair of Industrial Economics
Nottingham University Business School
Jubilee Campus
Wollaton Road
Nottingham NG8 1BB
United Kingdom
18. Dr. Eduardo J. Echeverria
Professor of Philosophy
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
2701 Chicago Blvd
Detroit, MI 48206
19. Jane Adolphe
Associate Professor of Law
Ave Maria School of Law
Ann Arbor, Michigan
USA, 48105
20. Teresa S. Collett
Professor of Law
University of St. Thomas School of Law
MSL 400, 1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2015
21. David Braine,
Honorary Research Fellow,
Department of Philosophy,
University of Aberdeen, UK.
22. Dr. Helen Watt
Director
Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics
London
23. Ligia M. De Jesus
Assistant Professor of Law
Ave Maria School of Law
3475 Plymouth Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2550
USA
24. Jacqueline M. Nolan-Haley
Professor of Law
Director, ADR & Conflict Resolution Program
Fordham Law School
140 W. 62nd Street
New York, New York 10023
25. William E. May
Michael J.McGivney Professor of Moral Theology
John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family
Washington DC
26. Evelyn (Timmie) Birge Vitz
Professor of French, New York University
Affiliated Professor of Comparative Literature, Medieval
and Renaissance Studies, and Religious Studies
19 University Place, #623, New York, NY 10003
27. Mary M. Keys
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
USA
28. Mark E. Ginter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Moral Theology
Saint Meinrad School of Theology
200 Hill Drive
St. Meinrad, IN 47577
29. Father Daniel J. Trapp
Professor of Sacramental Theology
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
2701 Chicago Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48206
30. Maria Fedoryka
Philosophy Department of Ave Maria University
Ave Maria, FL.
31. Dr Dermot Grenham
Graduate Teaching Assistant
London School of Economics
London
32. Dr. Michael Pakaluk
Professor of Philosophy
Institute for the Psychological Sciences
Arlington, VA 22101
33. Timothy Flanigan MD
Professor of Medicine
Brown University Medical School
34. Gerard Bradley
School of Law
Notre Dame University
35. Adrian J. Reimers
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy
208 Malloy Hall
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
574-631-7384
36. Daniel Philpott
Associate Professor, Political Science and Joan B. Kroc Institute
for International Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame
37. Aneta Gawkowska
Assistant Professor, Sociology
University of Warsaw
38. Tom D’Andrea
Philosophy
Cambridge University
39. Peter Kreeft
Philosophy
Boston College
40. J. Budziszewski
Departments of Government and Philosophy
University of Texas at Austin
41. Habib Malik
Department of History, Lebanese American University
Beirut
42. Nicholas Eberstadt
Political Economy
American Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C.
Reactions to http://franciscotatad.blogspot.com
I have just received by email a copy of a statement signed (as of now) by 42 international Catholic scholars, mostly from the United States, but also from the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain and the Middle East, commenting on the recent declaration by some individual faculty members of the Ateneo de Manila University that Catholics can “in good conscience” support House Bill 5043 on “reproductive health,” even though its main proposals directly contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church.
The statement of the 42 international scholars says the Ateneo “professors” are gravely mistaken in their “presentation” of Church teaching, and that no Catholic can in good conscience support HB 5043.
The list includes world renowned theologians Janet Smith and William May; philosopher and author Peter Kreeft; the highly respected demographer Nicholas Eberstadt; a well-known Jesuit philosophy professor at Fordham University; the Jesuit chair of Theology and Christology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit; a lady professor of law at Fordham; a lady associate professor of political science at University of Notre Dame; a lady professor of the philosophy of law and director of the Institute of Human Rights at the University of Navarre; an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Warsaw; a philosophy professor at Cambridge University; the chair of industrial economics at Nottingham University; a graduate teaching assistant at London School of Economics; a research fellow in philosophy at the University of Aberdeen; the lady director of a center for Healthcare Ethics in London; the professor-son of Lebanese philosopher and “brains” of the United Nations Charles Malik in Beirut; and distinguished professors of law, philosophy and theology in various American universities and seminaries.
This response from abroad shows that it is hardly possible for any “Catholic academic” anywhere to make any loose statement about the teaching of the Catholic Church without eventually hearing from serious scholars who have devoted their lives trying to understand and live Catholic teaching, away from the ideological pull of institutions and agencies engaged in the global business of population control and “reproductive health.”
I am informed the statement has been sent directly to the Philippine media, in the hope of getting the same space and time they had given to the Ateneo faculty statement. I am sure the editors will recognize its distinct merit, and give it the same space and time it deserves.
However, I reproduce here the text of the statement and its signatories for the reader’s information, especially if our expectation of fair play from the media proves excessive. Catholic academics who recognize the statement’s merit may also want to manifest their solidarity and support by signing in.
The truth must prevail.
AN OPEN LETTER IN RESPONSE TO
THE 14 SIGNATORIES OF THE ATENEO STATEMENT
THE 14 SIGNATORIES OF THE ATENEO STATEMENT
”House Bill 5043 on “Reproductive Health and Population Development” has occasioned enormous debate in the Philippines and was recently the subject of a position paper drafted by 14 members of the faculty of the Ateneo de Manila University. In their statement, these faculty stated their belief that the bill adheres “to core principles of Catholic social teaching: the sanctity of human life, the dignity of the human person, the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, integral human development, human rights, and the primacy of conscience.” They believe these conditions of Catholic social teaching are met in Bill 5043. We, the undersigned Catholic academics, assert, however, that these Ateneo faculty are gravely mistaken in their presentation of the Church’s teaching.
”The primary reason for these Ateneo Faculty members´ support of the bill seems to stem from their deep commitment to the Church’s long-held “preferential option for the poor.” Their position paper describes, heart-wrenchingly, the situation of the poor in the Philippines. High maternal mortality rates, inadequate and uneven provision of basic health care, lack of birth attendants, and lack of reproductive health information: such situations place an undue burden on the poor, and in particular on women. These women, like all women, desire to determine the number and spacing of their children, and ensure that proper nutrition, health care, and education can be provided for each member of their families. As Catholics, we have a clear obligation to ensure that all persons, particularly the poor, have the ability to exercise these basic freedoms.
”As Catholic academics, we agree that we must support civic and governmental initiatives that can aid the poor. Nevertheless, a Catholic cannot support the Reproductive Health and Population Development bill in good conscience, because the primary provisions of the bill not only fail to recognize and support the dignity of the poor, but also stand in direct opposition to Catholic social teaching. The bill focuses primarily on providing services to curb the number of children of the poor, while doing little to remedy their situation, provide necessary health care or establish the grounds for sound economic development.
”A few citations will serve to show how clear and unambiguous is the Church’s care for the dignity of the person, and in particular the poor, and how critical it is for us to heed her teachings in addressing the circumstances facing the Philippines today.
”Rerum Novarum opens with the powerful reminder that “Man precedes the state” and for that reason should not be subject to the state’s regulation of his private matters. Populorum Progressio reiterates this sentiment, stating: "No solution . . . is acceptable which does violence to man's essential dignity; those who propose such solutions base them on an utterly materialistic conception of man himself and his life. The only possible solution to this question is one which envisages the social and economic progress both of individuals and of the whole of human society, and which respects and promotes true human values."[1]
”Perhaps no document speaks more powerfully in opposition to the main ideas in this bill than Humanae Vitae: “Therefore we base our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when we are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the Magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary.”[2]
“In reply to the claim that reproductive rights, contraception and sterilization are required in order to help the poor limit their family size and thus aid the poor by reducing the numbers of mouths to feed, Humanae Vitae states: “Others ask on the same point whether it is not reasonable in so many cases to use artificial birth control if by so doing the harmony and peace of a family are better served and more suitable conditions are provided for the education of children already born. To this question we must give a clear reply. The Church is the first to praise and commend the application of human intelligence to an activity in which a rational creature such as man is so closely associated with his Creator. But she affirms that this must be done within the limits of the order of reality established by God.”[3]
”Artificial contraception can never be accepted by the Church as an action in conformity with the dignity of the human person because “each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.”[4] Further, it is never valid to argue, “as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one,[5]” as the authors of the position paper seem to suggest. While applauding efforts in the bill to provide information on both artificial and natural forms of family planning, the position paper then asserts that provision of contraceptives as essential medicines and fully covered sterilizations for indigent patients are measures that promote quality of life.[6] This statement directly contradicts Catholic teaching, which recognizes the use and promotion of artificial contraception and sterilization as intrinsically evil. Such actions can never be promoted or justified. “It is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it – in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, or a family or of society in general. Consequently it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.[7]”
“The Church does not hold these positions to punish the poor, but rather because she recognizes that the poor have the same inviolable dignity and rights that all human persons share. What the poor need is not contraception and sterilization, but to experience authentic solidarity with those who, in responding to their innate dignity, work with the poor to enable them to develop their skills, improve their circumstances and cultivate lives that are marked by both interior and exterior freedom. This places a much more radical demand on those of us to whom much has been given (Luke 12:48); we must live and work with the poor in order to identify and enable the resources they require to live lives of authentic freedom.
”Finally, Humanae Vitae warns us that "[c]areful consideration should be given to the danger of this power[8] passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.”[9]
“These statements of the Church and Magisterium have been retained in all subsequent documents and reiterated in documents too numerous to cite here.[10] These few, but clear, passages make it abundantly clear that no Catholic can in good conscience support Bill 5043. This Bill violates the Church’s teachings in the gravest manner.
”Maternal and ObGyn health
“Finally, it must be emphasized that there are two sections in the bill that should be applauded and expanded. Both Section 6 and Section 7 call for the expansion of midwives and birth attendants, as well as greater access to obstetric care. Such measures are critical to reducing maternal mortality and making progress toward the Millennium Development Goals, particularly MDG 5 (maternal health) and MDG 4 (infant health). Healthy mothers are the critical factor in assuring infant and child health.[11]
”Unfortunately, these two sections are the weakest in the bill. Most of the reproductive health proposals of the bill are mandatory and supported through financial means, as well as through the creation of new government agencies to assure implementation. Sections 6 and 7 of the Bill, which provide the only concrete health care and services to prevent or eliminate maternal mortality, are not mandatory, and the bill earmarks neither institutional support systems nor finances for their implementation. The POPCOM, which is established in Section 5 to implement and oversee the commitments outlined in the bill, has nine specific areas related to reproductive health and reproductive health services, yet no explicit mention of any responsibility in the area of maternal and ObGyn care. This most important section of the bill - and the only section actually consistent with Catholic social teaching - has been entirely neglected in the allocation of responsibilities to the agency established to oversee its implementation.
“A bill that responds to the situation of the poor requires us to respond to their full range of needs in order to facilitate integral improvement in their quality of life. This necessitates the creation of laws that guarantee the adoption of measures, at the national and local levels, that will lead to improved access to authentic development including the provision of basic health care and access to quality education. It is measures such as these that will enable the poor to develop and thrive, and that will affirm and respect the dignity of each and every human person. This bill stops short of assuring implementation of needed medical care, while emphasizing the adoption of measures that deny the dignity and freedom of the poor. As Catholics we have a moral duty to defend and support the poor; we must demand more from our legislators and from ourselves, placing ourselves at the service of poor, ready to commit to the necessary work, sacrifice and solidarity needed to establish and build societies that will respond to authentic needs while respecting the dignity and freedom of every human person.”
”The primary reason for these Ateneo Faculty members´ support of the bill seems to stem from their deep commitment to the Church’s long-held “preferential option for the poor.” Their position paper describes, heart-wrenchingly, the situation of the poor in the Philippines. High maternal mortality rates, inadequate and uneven provision of basic health care, lack of birth attendants, and lack of reproductive health information: such situations place an undue burden on the poor, and in particular on women. These women, like all women, desire to determine the number and spacing of their children, and ensure that proper nutrition, health care, and education can be provided for each member of their families. As Catholics, we have a clear obligation to ensure that all persons, particularly the poor, have the ability to exercise these basic freedoms.
”As Catholic academics, we agree that we must support civic and governmental initiatives that can aid the poor. Nevertheless, a Catholic cannot support the Reproductive Health and Population Development bill in good conscience, because the primary provisions of the bill not only fail to recognize and support the dignity of the poor, but also stand in direct opposition to Catholic social teaching. The bill focuses primarily on providing services to curb the number of children of the poor, while doing little to remedy their situation, provide necessary health care or establish the grounds for sound economic development.
”A few citations will serve to show how clear and unambiguous is the Church’s care for the dignity of the person, and in particular the poor, and how critical it is for us to heed her teachings in addressing the circumstances facing the Philippines today.
”Rerum Novarum opens with the powerful reminder that “Man precedes the state” and for that reason should not be subject to the state’s regulation of his private matters. Populorum Progressio reiterates this sentiment, stating: "No solution . . . is acceptable which does violence to man's essential dignity; those who propose such solutions base them on an utterly materialistic conception of man himself and his life. The only possible solution to this question is one which envisages the social and economic progress both of individuals and of the whole of human society, and which respects and promotes true human values."[1]
”Perhaps no document speaks more powerfully in opposition to the main ideas in this bill than Humanae Vitae: “Therefore we base our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when we are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the Magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary.”[2]
“In reply to the claim that reproductive rights, contraception and sterilization are required in order to help the poor limit their family size and thus aid the poor by reducing the numbers of mouths to feed, Humanae Vitae states: “Others ask on the same point whether it is not reasonable in so many cases to use artificial birth control if by so doing the harmony and peace of a family are better served and more suitable conditions are provided for the education of children already born. To this question we must give a clear reply. The Church is the first to praise and commend the application of human intelligence to an activity in which a rational creature such as man is so closely associated with his Creator. But she affirms that this must be done within the limits of the order of reality established by God.”[3]
”Artificial contraception can never be accepted by the Church as an action in conformity with the dignity of the human person because “each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.”[4] Further, it is never valid to argue, “as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one,[5]” as the authors of the position paper seem to suggest. While applauding efforts in the bill to provide information on both artificial and natural forms of family planning, the position paper then asserts that provision of contraceptives as essential medicines and fully covered sterilizations for indigent patients are measures that promote quality of life.[6] This statement directly contradicts Catholic teaching, which recognizes the use and promotion of artificial contraception and sterilization as intrinsically evil. Such actions can never be promoted or justified. “It is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it – in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, or a family or of society in general. Consequently it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.[7]”
“The Church does not hold these positions to punish the poor, but rather because she recognizes that the poor have the same inviolable dignity and rights that all human persons share. What the poor need is not contraception and sterilization, but to experience authentic solidarity with those who, in responding to their innate dignity, work with the poor to enable them to develop their skills, improve their circumstances and cultivate lives that are marked by both interior and exterior freedom. This places a much more radical demand on those of us to whom much has been given (Luke 12:48); we must live and work with the poor in order to identify and enable the resources they require to live lives of authentic freedom.
”Finally, Humanae Vitae warns us that "[c]areful consideration should be given to the danger of this power[8] passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.”[9]
“These statements of the Church and Magisterium have been retained in all subsequent documents and reiterated in documents too numerous to cite here.[10] These few, but clear, passages make it abundantly clear that no Catholic can in good conscience support Bill 5043. This Bill violates the Church’s teachings in the gravest manner.
”Maternal and ObGyn health
“Finally, it must be emphasized that there are two sections in the bill that should be applauded and expanded. Both Section 6 and Section 7 call for the expansion of midwives and birth attendants, as well as greater access to obstetric care. Such measures are critical to reducing maternal mortality and making progress toward the Millennium Development Goals, particularly MDG 5 (maternal health) and MDG 4 (infant health). Healthy mothers are the critical factor in assuring infant and child health.[11]
”Unfortunately, these two sections are the weakest in the bill. Most of the reproductive health proposals of the bill are mandatory and supported through financial means, as well as through the creation of new government agencies to assure implementation. Sections 6 and 7 of the Bill, which provide the only concrete health care and services to prevent or eliminate maternal mortality, are not mandatory, and the bill earmarks neither institutional support systems nor finances for their implementation. The POPCOM, which is established in Section 5 to implement and oversee the commitments outlined in the bill, has nine specific areas related to reproductive health and reproductive health services, yet no explicit mention of any responsibility in the area of maternal and ObGyn care. This most important section of the bill - and the only section actually consistent with Catholic social teaching - has been entirely neglected in the allocation of responsibilities to the agency established to oversee its implementation.
“A bill that responds to the situation of the poor requires us to respond to their full range of needs in order to facilitate integral improvement in their quality of life. This necessitates the creation of laws that guarantee the adoption of measures, at the national and local levels, that will lead to improved access to authentic development including the provision of basic health care and access to quality education. It is measures such as these that will enable the poor to develop and thrive, and that will affirm and respect the dignity of each and every human person. This bill stops short of assuring implementation of needed medical care, while emphasizing the adoption of measures that deny the dignity and freedom of the poor. As Catholics we have a moral duty to defend and support the poor; we must demand more from our legislators and from ourselves, placing ourselves at the service of poor, ready to commit to the necessary work, sacrifice and solidarity needed to establish and build societies that will respond to authentic needs while respecting the dignity and freedom of every human person.”
November 4, 2008
[1] Encyclical letter Populorum Progressio, nos. 48-55: AAS 59 (1967), 281-284
[2] Encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, nos 14-15, (1968)
[3] Ibid, no. 16
[4] Ibid, no. 12
[5] Ibid, no. 14
[6] “Catholics can Support the RH Bill in Good Conscience”, Position paper on the Reproductive Health Bill by individual faculty of the Ateneo de Manila University, pp. 2-7, 15 October, 2008
[7] Humane Vitae, no 14
[8] Paul VI is referring to the control of reproduction and artificial contraception when he talks of “this power” being put in the hands of the state. This passage follows directly on a passage in which he discusses the problems artificial contraception poses within the marital union, and then expands to the consideration of problems that will result if the state is given the authority to regulate conception and birth.
[9] Humanae Vitae, no 17
[10] The Church's teaching on marriage and human procreation affirms the "inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and of woman."(38) This principle, which is based upon the nature of marriage and the intimate connection of the goods of marriage, has well-known consequences on the level of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. "By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man's exalted vocation to parenthood."(39) The same doctrine concerning the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and between the goods of marriage throws light on the moral problem of homologous artificial fertilization, since "it is never permitted to separate these different aspects to such a degree as positively to exclude either the procreative intention or the conjugal relation." (40) Contraception deliberately deprives the conjugal act of its openness to procreation and in this way brings about a voluntary dissociation of the ends of marriage." The Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith quoting Humanae Vitae and Pope Pius XII in its "Instruction on the respect for Human Life and on the Dignity of Procreation" Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, February 22, 1987
[11] As cited in the Ateneo position paper, page 2.
List of Signatories
1. Prof Janet E. Smith
Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics
Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit, MI.
2. Robert G Kennedy, PhD
Professor and Chair
Department of Catholic Studies
Co-Director
Terrence J Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy
University of St Thomas
Mail #55-S
St Paul, MN 55105
3. Richard S. Myers
Professor of Law
Ave Maria School of Law
3475 Plymouth Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2550
4. Romanus Cessario, O.P.
Professor of Theology
Saint John's Seminary
Boston, Massachusetts
5. Rev. Joseph W. Koterski, S.J.
Department of Philosophy
Fordham University
Bronx, NY 10458 USA
6. Theresa Notare, PhD
Assistant Director
Natural Family Planning Program
Secretariat for Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th St., N.E.
Washington, DC 20017
7. Fr. Basil Cole, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
487 Michigan Ave NE
Washington DC 20017
bbcole@dhs.edu
8. E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.
Associate Professor of Moral Theology
Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary
Denver, Colorado 80210, USA
9. SC Selner-Wright, PhD
Acting Chair, Philosophy Department
Acting Director, Pre-Theology Cycle
St. John Vianney Theological Seminary
Denver, Colorado USA
10. Dr. Mary Healy
Associate Professor of Sacred Scripture
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
2701 Chicago Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48206
11. Ångela Aparisi Miralles
Philosophy of Law Professor
Directora - Instituto de Derechos Humanos
Universidad de Navarra
12. Michael Rota
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
University of St. Thomas
St. Paul, MN
13. Michael Scaperlanda
Associate Dean for Research
Edwards Family Chair in Law
University of Oklahoma College of Law
14. Richard Stith J.D.(Yale), Ph.D.(Yale)
Professor of Law
Valparaiso University School of Law
656 South Greenwich St.
Valparaiso, IN 46383-4945
USA
15. Patrick Quirk
Associate Professor
Ave Maria School of Law
3475 Plymouth Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105-2550
16. Fr. Earl Muller, S.J.
Kevin M. Britt Chair in Theology/Christology
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
Detroit, MI, USA
17. Professor David Paton
Chair of Industrial Economics
Nottingham University Business School
Jubilee Campus
Wollaton Road
Nottingham NG8 1BB
United Kingdom
18. Dr. Eduardo J. Echeverria
Professor of Philosophy
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
2701 Chicago Blvd
Detroit, MI 48206
19. Jane Adolphe
Associate Professor of Law
Ave Maria School of Law
Ann Arbor, Michigan
USA, 48105
20. Teresa S. Collett
Professor of Law
University of St. Thomas School of Law
MSL 400, 1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2015
21. David Braine,
Honorary Research Fellow,
Department of Philosophy,
University of Aberdeen, UK.
22. Dr. Helen Watt
Director
Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics
London
23. Ligia M. De Jesus
Assistant Professor of Law
Ave Maria School of Law
3475 Plymouth Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2550
USA
24. Jacqueline M. Nolan-Haley
Professor of Law
Director, ADR & Conflict Resolution Program
Fordham Law School
140 W. 62nd Street
New York, New York 10023
25. William E. May
Michael J.McGivney Professor of Moral Theology
John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family
Washington DC
26. Evelyn (Timmie) Birge Vitz
Professor of French, New York University
Affiliated Professor of Comparative Literature, Medieval
and Renaissance Studies, and Religious Studies
19 University Place, #623, New York, NY 10003
27. Mary M. Keys
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
USA
28. Mark E. Ginter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Moral Theology
Saint Meinrad School of Theology
200 Hill Drive
St. Meinrad, IN 47577
29. Father Daniel J. Trapp
Professor of Sacramental Theology
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
2701 Chicago Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48206
30. Maria Fedoryka
Philosophy Department of Ave Maria University
Ave Maria, FL.
31. Dr Dermot Grenham
Graduate Teaching Assistant
London School of Economics
London
32. Dr. Michael Pakaluk
Professor of Philosophy
Institute for the Psychological Sciences
Arlington, VA 22101
33. Timothy Flanigan MD
Professor of Medicine
Brown University Medical School
34. Gerard Bradley
School of Law
Notre Dame University
35. Adrian J. Reimers
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy
208 Malloy Hall
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
574-631-7384
36. Daniel Philpott
Associate Professor, Political Science and Joan B. Kroc Institute
for International Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame
37. Aneta Gawkowska
Assistant Professor, Sociology
University of Warsaw
38. Tom D’Andrea
Philosophy
Cambridge University
39. Peter Kreeft
Philosophy
Boston College
40. J. Budziszewski
Departments of Government and Philosophy
University of Texas at Austin
41. Habib Malik
Department of History, Lebanese American University
Beirut
42. Nicholas Eberstadt
Political Economy
American Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C.
Reactions to http://franciscotatad.blogspot.com
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Retire the Reproductive Health Bill
House Bill No. 5043 is titled “An Act Providing For National Policy On Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development and For Other Purposes.” Until it reached the floor for debate, I had thought it sufficient to dwell simply on the general principles of legislation and the basic provisions of the Constitution on human life, family and marriage to show that the bill has no place in our law.
The first point I tried to make is that there are certain activities of man as man, which are not subject to state regulation of any sort. These involve fundamental human rights that precede and transcend the State, such as the right to breathe, the right to think, the right to feel, the right to love, the right to hope, the right to believe.
The State has no business instructing the citizen, by law, how to breathe, how to think, how to feel, how to love, how to hope, how to believe. Under our Constitution, it may not even instruct congressmen how to interpellate, journalists how to write, broadcasters how to read the news.
Anyone who understands what has been said so far should have no difficulty understanding that the State has no business instructing married couples that they should first contracept or get themselves sterilized before they could engage in sexual intercourse.
The bill’s proponents seem completely unable or unwilling to grasp this rather plain and simple point. They seem to believe that they can legislate anything they want to legislate simply because they sit in Congress. This is a serious moral and intellectual disorder which finds support only in totalitarian states where the legislator need not sit in Congress. We are not yet a totalitarian state.
The second point I tried to make is that no proposed statute can possibly prosper which seeks to amend, or go around or against the Constitution outside of the constitutional amendatory process. And HB 5043 more than amply does this.
Article II, Section 12 of the Constitution is, or ought to be, a sufficient bar to HB 5043. “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.”
The provision, though not self-enforcing, needs no interpretation. Family life is sacred; it possesses a quality that belongs primarily to God. The family is the starting point of society and should be left alone to do its work as a family; the State’s duty is to protect it against all threats, including those coming from the State itself. The moral character of the youth is not likely to be developed by concentrating their minds on hedonistic sex.
By this provision, the Constitution bans abortion, but not contraception or sterilization. But can the State be an honest protector of the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from the moment of conception if its first business is to prevent women from conceiving? Of course, not. So the necessary implication of Sec. 12, Article II is a ban on state-sponsored or state-mediated contraception and sterilization, even though there is no such ban on private parties.
Even without the above provision, the whole Article XV on “The Family” should suffice. This recognizes marriage as “an inviolable social institution,”“the foundation of the family,” which shall be “protected by the State.” It further recognizes the Filipino family as the “foundation of the nation” and obliges the State to “strengthen its solidarity and actively promote its total development.” It further obliges the State to defend “the right of spouses to found a family according to their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood.”
Unless the Constitution has become a mere scrap of paper, these provisions should have barred the House of Representatives from approving HB 5043 at committee level. Even if all the economic justifications, which had been thoroughly discredited, had more teeth, the moral and constitutional bar, which the bill has failed to hurdle, should have prompted the committees to send it to the archives.
But there was a brazen attempt to steamroll the bill. Four reproductive health bills had been referred jointly to the House committees on health and on population and family relations. On April 29, 2008, the committees heard three of the four bills. They set a second hearing for May 21, 2008. But when the committees met on that date, the presiding officer announced that they would now deliberate on “the substitute bill” to the four bills. And on one member’s motion, the committees approved “the substitute bill.” No further hearing.
This was in violation of the constitutional provision, and a rule of the House, which mandate adequate consultations with families or family associations. The statement that the same bill had been heard in previous congresses, even if true, is irrelevant and immaterial, since all bills that fail to be acted upon by a particular congress die at the end of that congress. If any bill be refiled in a new congress, it should go through the legislative mill as though it was being filed for the first time.
Nowhere in the records does it appear that the joint committees ever instructed any officer or group of officers to consolidate the bills into one. The chair’s statement and the member’s motion spoke of “the substitute bill” as already in being, without need of a motion that it first be created.
Normally, bills are consolidated by a technical working group (TWG) created by the committee or joint committees upon a member’s motion to consolidate. There was no such motion, and no TWG was ever created. Where then did the substitute bill emanate?
Upon interpellation, the sponsor, who surprisingly is not the committee chair endorsing the bill, but rather the principal author himself, was reported to have said that the authors of the four component bills did it.
If true, it was highly irregular. Why? Because at that stage the bills were already under the joint committees’ jurisdiction and control, and nothing on record shows they had asked the authors to consolidate.
If false, which seems more likely, a serious ethical question arises, which completely vitiates the integrity of the proceedings, and which must be resolved by the House ethics committee, before which it should now be raised.
This is not a trifling technicality. There is loud talk in the House that the substitute bill, as well as the original component bills, was produced by a foreign-funded non-government entity, called the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD). PLCPD falls under the classification of “foreign agent,” according to the Foreign Agents Act of 1979, which I had the honor of initiating at the interim Batasang Pambansa.
The fact that all the reproductive health bills in the House and the Senate tend to read and sound alike, both in style and in content, and that PLCPD had been running ads urging passage of the bill, while David and Lucile Packard Foundation, one of its foreign funders, had criticized the government for the slowdown in its purchase of contraceptives, seem to provide more than ample basis for the loud talk in the House.
What foreign interests are behind the wild and moneyed push for this bill? Why are so many foreign-funded NGOs, featuring brand and customary “nationalists”, trying to ride roughshod over the Constitution and Catholic objections to it on moral and constitutional grounds?
The answer may be downloaded on the internet. Population control has a long history. It began in antiquity, but it became an invasive global political force in 1974 after Henry Kissinger came up with National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 200, titled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests.”
This secret document created the template for the global population action plan that called for a two-child family worldwide by the year 2000. Since then the greying and dying of the population of the West has exposed the folly of this plan. But some people still want to dance the dance. Just who are making them dance?
Regardless of the motives and agendas imbedded in HB 5043, as a piece of legislation, it is shot through with holes. It cannot survive an honest House. As stated in the beginning, the bill is titled, “An Act Providing For A National Policy On Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development, And For Other Purposes.”
The Constitution provides that “every bill passed by the Congress shall embrace only one subject which shall be expressed in the title thereof.” The bill’s failure to reflect its penal nature is a constitutional violation; the fact that it contains three separate subjects – reproductive health, responsible parenthood, and population development -- which it tries, unsuccessfully, to link together, is another.
But the bill’s most obvious and ultimately insurmountable defect is that it seeks to “provide” a national policy where the Constitution already provides one. You read this in Article II, Declaration of Principles and State Policies, eloquently spread out from Section 9 to Sec. 18 or further.
Congress can only implement the policy laid out in the Constitution. It cannot hope to replace or revise it. Of course, one may now try to amend the title to say that the bill is “implementing” the constitutional policy rather than trying to provide a new one. That, however, cannot stand. The contents of HB 5043 do not at all reflect the substance of the constitutional policy; they rather seek to deny, assault and pervert the same.
One final point. Assume (arguendo) that the constitutional policy did not at all exist, the government’s contraceptives and sterilization program – illegal as it is – already exists. You only need to play back then Health Secretary Johnny Flavier’s proud boast before his NGO crowd at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo to confirm it. The fat outlays inserted in the present and next year’s budgets for reproductive health further confirm it.
Friday, October 24, 2008
THE GOSPEL, ACCORDING TO SWS
Now come the latest SWS surveys.
These are a fitting climax to the high-octane propaganda campaign on reproductive health (RH). In numerous forums, RH propagandists had repeatedly bragged about alleged surveys showing popular support for HB 5043, and warning politicians against the wrath of the voters should they fail to support it. They will never get reelected, according to the propagandists.
It is an old con game. In 1992, before the seat of my pants ever touched my chair in the Senate, I attended a workshop for newly elected senators. Out of the blue appeared SWS’s Mahar Mangahas with an alleged survey claiming that if a senator did not support the government;s family planning, he would never get reelected.
Then Mangahas said, “You see, Senator Tatad, there’s no such thing as a Catholic vote.”
To which I replied, “In a Catholic country where most candidates are Catholic, there is no such thing as a Catholic vote. But try running a candidate whose program is to destroy the Catholic faith, and you’ll have a Catholic vote against that candidate.”
That was 16 years ago, but very little has changed. The population control lobby is poorer now, with the collapse of the global financial system. But it can still fund surveys, and remains as determined as ever to change our concept of human life, marriage and the family, and prevent us from becoming a threat to the security and economic interests of our richest friends. And the local conscripts proliferate.
Their claim of popular support has no factual basis at all. In 2007. the biggest voter-getter among the party-list parties was “Buhay” which won the most number of seats in the House of Representatives on its pro-life, pro-family program. No other party won a single seat on the basis of an anti-life, anti-family program.
HB 5043 is losing ground, and SWS had to shore up its sagging fortunes. But the survey questions were so skewed that one wonders why they were made public at all. All you have to do is read those questions, and wonder why SWS failed to report a 100% support for the bill.
The question SWS asked about the HB 5043, according to http://www.sws.org.ph/pr081016.htm, is as follows:
Ang “Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2007” ay isang panukalang batas sa mababang kapulungan ng kongreso na magbibigay ng katungkulan sa gobyerno na magtaguyod ng programa ukol sa responsableng pagpapamilya o responsible parenthood sa pamamagitan ng sapat na impormasyon sa publiko at pagkakaroon ng mga ligtas, legal, mura at de-kalidad na serbisyong pang-reproductive health sa mga taong may gusto nito. Kayo ba ay PABOR o HINDI PABOR sa panukalang batas na ito?
It is devious. It neither mentions the basic provisions of the bill nor does it define the basic terms used. People expect “reproductive health” to promote reproduction, but in the bill it is meant to promote contraception instead. The intention to deceive is patent. SWS must have been disappointed it did not get a 100-% endorsement.
In the survey reportedly commissioned by Forum for Family Planning and Development, SWS asked the following questions (http://www.sws.orgph/pr081016b.htm):
1) “The usage of legal contraceptives like condoms, IUDs and pills can also be considered as abortion. Agree or disagree?”
It is also a devious one. While HB 5043 describes “artificial contraceptives” as “modern”, SWS describes them as “legal.” This subtly endorses the contraceptives as unobjectionable. Now, IUD is an abortifacient, some pills (not all) are also abortifacient, condoms are (barrier) contraceptives with a high rate of failure. No one is saying the use of condoms, IUD or pills is abortion; but by asking that question, SWS is suggesting it is one of the points of contention. Thus, SWS is able to claim points for contraceptives, etc. simply by creating a strawman for everyone to shoot down.
2) “There should be a law that requires gov’t to distribute legal contraceptives like condoms, IUDs, and pills to people who want to avail of them. Agree or Disagree?”
Again, “legal.” The respondent’s normal inclination is to think that if the contraceptives are legal, then the government should be able to distribute them. It is a clever way of skirting the moral and constitutional issues altogether. Again, the intention to deceive is patent.
3) “If family planning would be included in their curriculum the youth would be sexually promiscuous. Agree or disagree?”
Once more, it is an exercise in deception. No one is objecting to “family planning,” properly understood. What is objected to in this instance is the proposed“mandatory sex education” for children from Grade V until high school, without parental consent.” What is at issue is not just the kind of sex “education” to be imposed, but above all the right of parents as the primary educators of their children to decide what kind of sex education their children will get, where, and from whom?
The core issue is not about family planning at all. It is whether or not we shall allow the State to stamp its boot on our most basic human rights in the name of population control. This involves moral and constitutional issues which cannot be decided by any opinion survey, especially one conducted by pollsters who are themselves advocates of population control.
These are a fitting climax to the high-octane propaganda campaign on reproductive health (RH). In numerous forums, RH propagandists had repeatedly bragged about alleged surveys showing popular support for HB 5043, and warning politicians against the wrath of the voters should they fail to support it. They will never get reelected, according to the propagandists.
It is an old con game. In 1992, before the seat of my pants ever touched my chair in the Senate, I attended a workshop for newly elected senators. Out of the blue appeared SWS’s Mahar Mangahas with an alleged survey claiming that if a senator did not support the government;s family planning, he would never get reelected.
Then Mangahas said, “You see, Senator Tatad, there’s no such thing as a Catholic vote.”
To which I replied, “In a Catholic country where most candidates are Catholic, there is no such thing as a Catholic vote. But try running a candidate whose program is to destroy the Catholic faith, and you’ll have a Catholic vote against that candidate.”
That was 16 years ago, but very little has changed. The population control lobby is poorer now, with the collapse of the global financial system. But it can still fund surveys, and remains as determined as ever to change our concept of human life, marriage and the family, and prevent us from becoming a threat to the security and economic interests of our richest friends. And the local conscripts proliferate.
Their claim of popular support has no factual basis at all. In 2007. the biggest voter-getter among the party-list parties was “Buhay” which won the most number of seats in the House of Representatives on its pro-life, pro-family program. No other party won a single seat on the basis of an anti-life, anti-family program.
HB 5043 is losing ground, and SWS had to shore up its sagging fortunes. But the survey questions were so skewed that one wonders why they were made public at all. All you have to do is read those questions, and wonder why SWS failed to report a 100% support for the bill.
The question SWS asked about the HB 5043, according to http://www.sws.org.ph/pr081016.htm, is as follows:
Ang “Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2007” ay isang panukalang batas sa mababang kapulungan ng kongreso na magbibigay ng katungkulan sa gobyerno na magtaguyod ng programa ukol sa responsableng pagpapamilya o responsible parenthood sa pamamagitan ng sapat na impormasyon sa publiko at pagkakaroon ng mga ligtas, legal, mura at de-kalidad na serbisyong pang-reproductive health sa mga taong may gusto nito. Kayo ba ay PABOR o HINDI PABOR sa panukalang batas na ito?
It is devious. It neither mentions the basic provisions of the bill nor does it define the basic terms used. People expect “reproductive health” to promote reproduction, but in the bill it is meant to promote contraception instead. The intention to deceive is patent. SWS must have been disappointed it did not get a 100-% endorsement.
In the survey reportedly commissioned by Forum for Family Planning and Development, SWS asked the following questions (http://www.sws.orgph/pr081016b.htm):
1) “The usage of legal contraceptives like condoms, IUDs and pills can also be considered as abortion. Agree or disagree?”
It is also a devious one. While HB 5043 describes “artificial contraceptives” as “modern”, SWS describes them as “legal.” This subtly endorses the contraceptives as unobjectionable. Now, IUD is an abortifacient, some pills (not all) are also abortifacient, condoms are (barrier) contraceptives with a high rate of failure. No one is saying the use of condoms, IUD or pills is abortion; but by asking that question, SWS is suggesting it is one of the points of contention. Thus, SWS is able to claim points for contraceptives, etc. simply by creating a strawman for everyone to shoot down.
2) “There should be a law that requires gov’t to distribute legal contraceptives like condoms, IUDs, and pills to people who want to avail of them. Agree or Disagree?”
Again, “legal.” The respondent’s normal inclination is to think that if the contraceptives are legal, then the government should be able to distribute them. It is a clever way of skirting the moral and constitutional issues altogether. Again, the intention to deceive is patent.
3) “If family planning would be included in their curriculum the youth would be sexually promiscuous. Agree or disagree?”
Once more, it is an exercise in deception. No one is objecting to “family planning,” properly understood. What is objected to in this instance is the proposed“mandatory sex education” for children from Grade V until high school, without parental consent.” What is at issue is not just the kind of sex “education” to be imposed, but above all the right of parents as the primary educators of their children to decide what kind of sex education their children will get, where, and from whom?
The core issue is not about family planning at all. It is whether or not we shall allow the State to stamp its boot on our most basic human rights in the name of population control. This involves moral and constitutional issues which cannot be decided by any opinion survey, especially one conducted by pollsters who are themselves advocates of population control.
A READING FROM 14 ATENEO PROFESSORS
Fouteen “Ateneo professors” argue that the highly controversial reproductive health bill “adheres to Catholic social teaching” and that “Catholics can support it in good conscience.” They ask “our bishops and fellow Catholics” not to block passage of House Bill 5043.
How should a “fellow Catholic” respond?
With profound humility, I suppose, but with a firm resolve not to be misled.
The “professors” identify themselves as “individual faculty” whose opinions “do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Ateneo de Manila University nor the Society of Jesus.”
It is a crafty disclaimer. If they truly wanted to speak as individual Catholics, they could have done so without using the Ateneo label. But they clearly did not mind cashing in on Ateneo’s Catholic reputation.
Opposition to House Bill 5043 arises mainly from the fact that it seeks, among other things, to legalize a State program of contraception and sterilization that will require married couples to contracept or sterilize themselves before engaging in marital sex, and make available contraceptives and sterilization devices as “essential medicines” even to unmarried individuals. It also seeks to impose a “mandatory sex education” on all children, from Grade V up to high school, without parental consent, to prepare them for “a safe and satisfying sex life.”
Church teaching condemns contraception and sterilization as intrinsically evil. It has no room for a State program of contraception and sterilization. Should Catholics accept “in good conscience” State intervention in the most intimate aspect of their married life? The last time I checked, it is still the bishops who exercise the Church’s teaching authority; no university faculty has the authority to pronounce what Catholics may or may not follow in good conscience.
No doubt quite a number of “Catholics” are contracepting and getting sterilized. They probably make up a good part of the country’s 50-% contraceptive prevalence rate. Does it mean the Church teaching is wrong, or is it simply because people are not sufficiently formed or informed? One explanation is that there is an aggressive government program bereft of any valid mandate, which includes monetary incentives for ligation and vasectomy. Foreign-funded NGOs are into it also. And the distribution, sale or use of contraceptives and sterilization devices is not restricted by law.
Thus, as far as HB 5043 is concerned, free access to contraceptives, etc. is no longer in issue. The real issue is whether or not the State should impose contraception and sterilization upon married couples; provide contraceptives and sterilization devices as essential medicines even to unmarried individuals; impose a “mandatory sex education” on all schoolchildren from Grade V until high school, without parental consent; propose a two-child family as “the ideal” family size for all; require couples to obtain a family planning certificate before they could get married; penalize anyone who talks “maliciously” about “reproductive health”; and expand the powers of the Population Commission, whose legal mandate had lapsed upon the promulgation of the pro-life and pro-family Constitution in 1987.
HB 5043 is a penal measure. But it masks itself as a simple proposal “to provide a national policy on reproductive health, responsible parenthood and population development.” However, Article II of the Constitution, “Declaration of Principles and State Policies,” and Article XV, “The Family”, more than abundantly provide such a policy; that renders any proposed new policy superfluous and unconstitutional.
Of course, Congress can “implement” the constitutional policy. And it well should. But HB 5043 cannot do so for the simple reason that almost everything in it contradicts the constitutional policy.
Under Article II, the State recognizes “the sanctity of family life.” Its mandate is to protect and strengthen the family as a basic, autonomous social institution; “equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception”; support the primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of their moral character; promote and protect their physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual, and social wellbeing, etc.
Under Article XV, the State recognizes the Filipino family as “the foundation of the nation,” and marriage, “an inviolable social institution,” as “the foundation of the family.” Its mandate is to protect marriage, and to strengthen the solidarity of the family and promote its total development.
All these HB 5043 seeks to override. It seeks to put the State in control of family life, which the Constitution says is autonomous, inviolable and sacred. It seeks to set up State contraception and sterilization side by side with the State’s commitment to “equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.”
As we speak, the global financial system is breaking down. The irreparable flaws of a global order that worships material progress at the expense of what is sacred in man have exposed the ruinous follies of the West. Global agendas based on greed have failed. Demographic power has shifted to the East, and with it, economic and social power. We are part of that shift, if only because of our dynamic and vibrant population. Yet at the behest of unreconstructed population controllers, some of our politicians, economists, scientists, and university “professors,”seem determined to follow the old alien agenda that has ultimately failed.
We need the moral and intellectual reserves of the Church, the universities, the intelligentsia, the media and the great masses of our people to make sure we do what is right. It would be quite tragic if instead of guiding young minds into the light, our “professors” were to lead them into the dark.
How should a “fellow Catholic” respond?
With profound humility, I suppose, but with a firm resolve not to be misled.
The “professors” identify themselves as “individual faculty” whose opinions “do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Ateneo de Manila University nor the Society of Jesus.”
It is a crafty disclaimer. If they truly wanted to speak as individual Catholics, they could have done so without using the Ateneo label. But they clearly did not mind cashing in on Ateneo’s Catholic reputation.
Opposition to House Bill 5043 arises mainly from the fact that it seeks, among other things, to legalize a State program of contraception and sterilization that will require married couples to contracept or sterilize themselves before engaging in marital sex, and make available contraceptives and sterilization devices as “essential medicines” even to unmarried individuals. It also seeks to impose a “mandatory sex education” on all children, from Grade V up to high school, without parental consent, to prepare them for “a safe and satisfying sex life.”
Church teaching condemns contraception and sterilization as intrinsically evil. It has no room for a State program of contraception and sterilization. Should Catholics accept “in good conscience” State intervention in the most intimate aspect of their married life? The last time I checked, it is still the bishops who exercise the Church’s teaching authority; no university faculty has the authority to pronounce what Catholics may or may not follow in good conscience.
No doubt quite a number of “Catholics” are contracepting and getting sterilized. They probably make up a good part of the country’s 50-% contraceptive prevalence rate. Does it mean the Church teaching is wrong, or is it simply because people are not sufficiently formed or informed? One explanation is that there is an aggressive government program bereft of any valid mandate, which includes monetary incentives for ligation and vasectomy. Foreign-funded NGOs are into it also. And the distribution, sale or use of contraceptives and sterilization devices is not restricted by law.
Thus, as far as HB 5043 is concerned, free access to contraceptives, etc. is no longer in issue. The real issue is whether or not the State should impose contraception and sterilization upon married couples; provide contraceptives and sterilization devices as essential medicines even to unmarried individuals; impose a “mandatory sex education” on all schoolchildren from Grade V until high school, without parental consent; propose a two-child family as “the ideal” family size for all; require couples to obtain a family planning certificate before they could get married; penalize anyone who talks “maliciously” about “reproductive health”; and expand the powers of the Population Commission, whose legal mandate had lapsed upon the promulgation of the pro-life and pro-family Constitution in 1987.
HB 5043 is a penal measure. But it masks itself as a simple proposal “to provide a national policy on reproductive health, responsible parenthood and population development.” However, Article II of the Constitution, “Declaration of Principles and State Policies,” and Article XV, “The Family”, more than abundantly provide such a policy; that renders any proposed new policy superfluous and unconstitutional.
Of course, Congress can “implement” the constitutional policy. And it well should. But HB 5043 cannot do so for the simple reason that almost everything in it contradicts the constitutional policy.
Under Article II, the State recognizes “the sanctity of family life.” Its mandate is to protect and strengthen the family as a basic, autonomous social institution; “equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception”; support the primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of their moral character; promote and protect their physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual, and social wellbeing, etc.
Under Article XV, the State recognizes the Filipino family as “the foundation of the nation,” and marriage, “an inviolable social institution,” as “the foundation of the family.” Its mandate is to protect marriage, and to strengthen the solidarity of the family and promote its total development.
All these HB 5043 seeks to override. It seeks to put the State in control of family life, which the Constitution says is autonomous, inviolable and sacred. It seeks to set up State contraception and sterilization side by side with the State’s commitment to “equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.”
As we speak, the global financial system is breaking down. The irreparable flaws of a global order that worships material progress at the expense of what is sacred in man have exposed the ruinous follies of the West. Global agendas based on greed have failed. Demographic power has shifted to the East, and with it, economic and social power. We are part of that shift, if only because of our dynamic and vibrant population. Yet at the behest of unreconstructed population controllers, some of our politicians, economists, scientists, and university “professors,”seem determined to follow the old alien agenda that has ultimately failed.
We need the moral and intellectual reserves of the Church, the universities, the intelligentsia, the media and the great masses of our people to make sure we do what is right. It would be quite tragic if instead of guiding young minds into the light, our “professors” were to lead them into the dark.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Second Letter to Sen. Pia Cayetano
17 October 2008
SEN. PIA S. CAYETANO
Chairperson, Committee on Health and Demography
Senate
Pasay City
Dear Senator Cayetano:
I wish to thank you for your letter of 15 October 2008, signed by your Committee Secretary, and inviting me to send a representative to a Technical Working Group (TWG) meeting on 20 October 2008 on the six bills and one resolution on reproductive health and population management which had been referred to your Committee, and to five other committees, namely, the Committees on Youth, Women and Family Relations; Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development; Local Government; Ways and Means; and Finance.
Assuming that this TWG meeting is being held upon instruction of the Joint Committees, would it not be most appropriate that it be limited to technical people who are directly accountable to the Joint Committees? It would seem to me most desirable that they assume full responsibility for this work without the participation of outsiders who have no direct accountability to the Committees.
For this reason, I am unable to send a representative to the meeting. Additionally, I am of the view that most of the proposals under consideration are openly violative of the Constitution and should be sent to the Archives forthwith.
However, if the Joint Committees had decided to consolidate the proposals into a single text for the purpose of facilitating discussions during the hearings, I would be prepared to contribute further comments on the consolidated text. But if the intention is to consolidate the proposals into a single bill to be reported out on Second Reading with no further hearings, I would be obliged to point out that such a step is premature and inappropriate.
This is because the two hearings conducted on May 7, 2008 and on August 11, 2008 (which I attended) lacked the quorum required by the Rules. The first hearing was attended by two senators only; the second began with three senators, and a fourth one joined later. A quorum is needed before the Senate as a body or any of its committees can do business; the lack thereof vitiates the validity of the proceedings.
Rule 22 of the Rules of the Senate provides:
“One-third of all the regular members of the committee shall constitute a quorum but in no case shall it be less than two. The presence of ex-officio members may be considered in determining the existence of a quorum. However, the committee may authorize a few number of members to conduct public hearings on bills pending before it or to gather facts in aid of legislation.”
The first part of the first sentence expresses the general rule: one third of all the regular members of the committee shall constitute a quorum. The second part of the sentence ----“but in no case shall it be less than two”----constitutes the exception: where one third of all the members is less than two---as in a committee of three, or four, or five---the quorum shall always be made up of at least two members.
That is what the Rule means
Pursuant to this Rule, the Joint Committee hearings would need one-third of 78, which is the total regular membership of the six committees taking part in the hearings. This means 26 senators, and yet there are only 23 senators sitting. This is cured by the presence of four senators who are each members of the six committees and one more senator who sits in two of the six committees. However, there was no such presence in the two hearings.
Informed of the erroneous practice of most committees, I had formally raised this question in a letter to Senate President Manuel Villar, coursed through the Chairman of the Committee on Rules and Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan, dated 28 July 2008 and personally received by Sen. Pangilinan on the same date. You will kindly recall, and the records will bear, that I made reference to this matter during my intervention at the 11 August 2008 Senate hearing.
Regrettably, my communication to the Senate President never entered the Order of Business which normally reflects communications of this nature, and was not replied to within the 15-day period prescribed by Republic Act 6713, otherwise known as the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees. Consequently, I had to write Senate President Villar a second letter on 01 Sept. 2008 to reiterate my request for a clarification on the matter.
On 17 Sept 2008 or thereabouts, I finally received a letter from Sen. Pangilinan dated 16 Sept 2008, saying he had forwarded my 28 July 2008 letter to the Senate President, and that he had included it in the issues to be discussed in the next meeting of the Committee on Rules, whenever it is called. A few days thereafter, I received a “Dear Kit” letter from the Senate President dated 03 Sept 2008 and signed “Manny Villar,” to inform me that he had referred my 01 Sept. 2008, and yet another letter dated 02 Sept. 2008 on the subject of foreign agents, to Sen. Pangilinan, without any reference to my 28 July 2008 letter.
You will perhaps understand if I say how confused I am by these developments. In any case, the Committee on Rules has not ruled on this issue until now, despite the fact that the committees are meeting every session day. But as a member of the Bar, the distinguished Chair of the the Joint Committee hearings can see very clearly what Rule 22 means. The hearings never had a quorum.
So much for the procedural question, although this appears to be in fact prejudicial.
At the 11 August 2008 hearing I made two basic points, which I should like to recapitulate:
First, there are certain human activities where the State may not at all intervene. How a married couple are to engage in sexual intercourse in the privacy of their bedroom is not subject to any law coming from the State. The State cannot require couples to contracept or sterilize themselves as a precondition to exercising their conjugal rights, without violating their basic dignity as a couple and as human beings. That would be a totalitarian imposition, which has no place in a democratic order.
(The principal author of HB 5043 claims it is fully within the police powers of the State to intervene. But police power, properly understood, refers to the exercise of the sovereign right of a government to promote order, safety, secuirity, health, morals and general welfare within constitutional limits” (Black’s Legal Dictionary). The intervention being proposed by the reproductive health bills is the kind that comes from a police state.)
Second, the Constitution is more than abundantly clear in proclaiming the sanctity of family life, and the duty of the State to protect and strengthen the family as an inviolable, basic, and autonomous social institution. Each of these words—inviolable, basic, autonomous---is sufficient to give the bills’ proponents pause, if they have the proper regard for the spirit and letter of the Constitution.
The constitutional policy on human life, marriage, and the family is generously spread all over Article II---Declaration of Principles and State Policies— and the whole of Article XV—The Family. There is nothing in that policy that would remotely justify any of the major proposals contained in the reproductive health bills.
Section 12, Article II alone, which guarantees that the State shall “equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception” is a clear, unmistakable and inviolable warrant against a State-sponsored or State-mediated program of contraception. The reason needs no extensive elucidation. For how could a State guarantee to equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception if its first business is to prevent women from conceiving? How can anyone who is doing everything to deny the emergence of new human life undertake a commitment to protect human life from its very beginning?
A large number of foreign-funded organizations, which fall under the classification of “foreign agents” under the Foreign Agents Act of 1979, and which may not have performed the legal acts required before they could lobby Congress on any issue, have been at the forefront of the campaign for the passage of the reproductive health bill in the House, and its yet undefined counterpart in the Senate. They have zeroed in on the “right” of women to have access to all types of artificial contraceptives and sterilization agents and devices, as though such access was restricted by law or banned.
As everyone knows there is no law prohibiting anybody from having access to and using any contraceptive or sterilization agent or device of their choice. In fact, while the bills seek to institute a state-funded contraceptives and sterilization program, the government has been dispensing contraceptives and sterilizing men and women for years, without a legal mandate. The program antedates the pro-life and pro-family Constitution, and has remained in place despite the fact that the Constitution has rendered its continued existence unconstitutional.
What the bills now want to do is to require couples, by law, to use contraceptives and sterilization devices and agents and for the State to provide contraceptives and sterilization agents and devices as essential medicines at the expense of the taxpayers who may or may not believe in the use of such contraceptives and sterilization agents and devices.
There can be no greater travesty of the Constitution and public morals.
There is a tendency to flood the market with all sorts of foreign-funded population control propaganda and to drown various forums with the sheer number of those who are pushing for the bill. The campaign has also begun to use academics who do not mind lending their credentials to the unconstitutional proposal and so-called opinion surveys showing massive support for a bill which none of the survey respondents had read or seen.
One SWS report makes this extravagant claim based on a survey reportedly conducted on Sept. 24-27, 2008 for the Forum for Family Planning and Development (FFPD), obviously a very rich (self-funded?) organization. Unfortunately, the FFPD executive present at the 11 August 2008 hearing tried to impress his audience with the results of such a survey during that hearing, over a month before it was allegedly conducted by SWS. Several other pro-RH bill campaigners had also been talking of such a survey even before the FFPD executive bragged about it in the Senate hearing.
The Joint Committees cannot allow this deception to influence their deliberations. Even if the so-called surveys were not fraudulent, the Committees must not forget that the truth is not determined by surveys or popularity contests; a law is valid only if it is based on truth and justice, otherwise it is an unjust law, and no majority vote can make it just and binding on anyone.
Now, to respond positively to the demand of women for family planning information and services, the Joint Committees would probably be well-advised to propose the following:
1. That married couples be free to practice family planning according to their moral and religious beliefs, using methods that are safe, legal and not contrary to public morals, without any coercion or intimidation from any third party;
2. That the State neither prohibit nor promote any specific family planning method, but make sure that only such methods which are safe, legal and not contrary to public morals be used;
3. That to safeguard and protect the health and wellbeing of women, the government require contraceptives manufacturers to disclose all possible side-effects of their products, and to label those that could induce cancer and other diseases accordingly;
4. That the State impose a distinction between abortifacients and normal contraceptives and prohibit the sale and distribution of abortifacients anywhere in the Philippines;
5. That the government establish basic and emergency obstetrics facilities in every barangay, and promote breast-feeding and proper nutrition especially for women and children nationwide, even without need of legislation;
6. That the State encourage and support community-based and family-initiated programs for the education of adult men and women on parenting and the development of the moral and civic character of children.
This list is simply illustrative of what can be done to serve the common good, using the tools made available to Congress by the Constitution, while resisting the intense pressure coming from outside to reshape and redefine our culture. I hope the Joint Committees use it as a point of departure for a truly good bill.
With renewed assurances of my highest esteem, I remain
Very sincerely yours,
FRANCISCO S. TATAD
FRANCISCO S. TATAD
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
No need to be wrong on contraception
It is painful and sad to see an academic justly admired for his usually helpful insights on legal issues melt down so badly on a subject where no one has any compelling reason to be wrong.
In his Sept. 26, 2008 column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (The clergy’s all-out war on contraceptives), Professor Raul C. Pangalangan, a former dean of the UP College of Law, criticizes Catholic objections to state-sponsored contraception as arising from an apparent confusion between contraception and abortion.
He suggests that if only the clergy (and the laity) knew how many abortions were being committed in the country, despite the fact that it remains a punishable crime, they would not object to a state policy and program of contraception. In many countries, they have used the purportedly high number of abortions to justify the legalization of the crime. It is like saying that since the number of unsolved murders is increasing, the State has incurred the duty to legalize murder.
The argument has not yet been raised here to justify the legalization of abortion. But it is being raised to justify a state policy and program of contraception. The numbers are being unduly fudged to heighten the argumentum ad misericordiam on behalf of “the poor.” But not even the poor are buying.
The unbroken historical record shows that in all countries that legalized abortion, legalization was unerringly preceded by universal contraception. The basic objection to state-sponsored contraception as proposed in House Bill 5043, however, does not arise from any confusion between contraception and abortion.
There is no such confusion. The objection is based simply on the fact that:
1) contraception goes against the conjugal moral order established by the Creator; and
2) state-sponsored contraception goes against the Constitution which proclaims “the sanctity of family life” and obliges the State to “protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution” and “to equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.” The Constitution recognizes marriage as the foundation of the Filipino family, and the family as the foundation of the nation.
That some contraceptives are, in fact, abortifacients presents an additional problem. That oral contraceptives have been established by the international research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO) to be cancer-causing presents yet another problem. But the natural moral law would still hold contraception to be wrong even if it were shown that all contraceptives were 100-percent “medically safe” and non-abortifacient.
The fact that the Church has no way of compelling anyone to follow her teaching faithfully on this matter does not give the State the right to sponsor a program of contraception, to be funded, ironically, by those whose faith denounces it as morally unacceptable. Such State action does violence to the constitutional separation of Church and State, which not Pangalangan alone seems to completely misunderstand.
Deputy Speaker Raul del Mar correctly upholds this separation when he says the State cannot and must not compel Catholics to fund a program that is anathema to their faith. State intervention in the intimate conjugal life of married couples is totally impermissible. The duty of the State is to heed and respect the teaching of the Church on this question.
It is painful and sad when a writer of Pangalangan’s credentials shows no awareness of the outstanding pro-life and pro-family provisions of the Constitution, which are under direct and open attack in HB 5043. Even more painful, and sadder, when he describes the Church, which has produced the greatest saints and sages known to man, as one “that is fittingly founded upon Marian devotion.”
The Church venerates Mary in a special way (hyperdulia) as the Mother of the Son of God made man, but the Church is not founded on any devotion to her. The Church is the assembly of the people of God, founded by Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, who died on the cross to redeem fallen man from sin, but who rose again from the dead and remains perpetually present in the Holy Eucharist, the sacrament of bread and wine. It is necessary to know what the Church is to understand her role in the lives of men and women.
In his Sept. 26, 2008 column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (The clergy’s all-out war on contraceptives), Professor Raul C. Pangalangan, a former dean of the UP College of Law, criticizes Catholic objections to state-sponsored contraception as arising from an apparent confusion between contraception and abortion.
He suggests that if only the clergy (and the laity) knew how many abortions were being committed in the country, despite the fact that it remains a punishable crime, they would not object to a state policy and program of contraception. In many countries, they have used the purportedly high number of abortions to justify the legalization of the crime. It is like saying that since the number of unsolved murders is increasing, the State has incurred the duty to legalize murder.
The argument has not yet been raised here to justify the legalization of abortion. But it is being raised to justify a state policy and program of contraception. The numbers are being unduly fudged to heighten the argumentum ad misericordiam on behalf of “the poor.” But not even the poor are buying.
The unbroken historical record shows that in all countries that legalized abortion, legalization was unerringly preceded by universal contraception. The basic objection to state-sponsored contraception as proposed in House Bill 5043, however, does not arise from any confusion between contraception and abortion.
There is no such confusion. The objection is based simply on the fact that:
1) contraception goes against the conjugal moral order established by the Creator; and
2) state-sponsored contraception goes against the Constitution which proclaims “the sanctity of family life” and obliges the State to “protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution” and “to equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.” The Constitution recognizes marriage as the foundation of the Filipino family, and the family as the foundation of the nation.
That some contraceptives are, in fact, abortifacients presents an additional problem. That oral contraceptives have been established by the international research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO) to be cancer-causing presents yet another problem. But the natural moral law would still hold contraception to be wrong even if it were shown that all contraceptives were 100-percent “medically safe” and non-abortifacient.
The fact that the Church has no way of compelling anyone to follow her teaching faithfully on this matter does not give the State the right to sponsor a program of contraception, to be funded, ironically, by those whose faith denounces it as morally unacceptable. Such State action does violence to the constitutional separation of Church and State, which not Pangalangan alone seems to completely misunderstand.
Deputy Speaker Raul del Mar correctly upholds this separation when he says the State cannot and must not compel Catholics to fund a program that is anathema to their faith. State intervention in the intimate conjugal life of married couples is totally impermissible. The duty of the State is to heed and respect the teaching of the Church on this question.
It is painful and sad when a writer of Pangalangan’s credentials shows no awareness of the outstanding pro-life and pro-family provisions of the Constitution, which are under direct and open attack in HB 5043. Even more painful, and sadder, when he describes the Church, which has produced the greatest saints and sages known to man, as one “that is fittingly founded upon Marian devotion.”
The Church venerates Mary in a special way (hyperdulia) as the Mother of the Son of God made man, but the Church is not founded on any devotion to her. The Church is the assembly of the people of God, founded by Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, who died on the cross to redeem fallen man from sin, but who rose again from the dead and remains perpetually present in the Holy Eucharist, the sacrament of bread and wine. It is necessary to know what the Church is to understand her role in the lives of men and women.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Revised: What's ailing the Senate?
It is sad to read about the Senate reeling under the charge that one member had managed to insert in the 2008 budget a double entry of P200 million ( for P400 million) for the same road project, which one newspaper has described as “a road to nowhere,” and how this charge has apparently divided the Chamber.
Not many would be amazed if something like this happened in the House of Representatives or in some provincial or city council.. But somehow people seem to have higher expectations of the Senate.
I am hoping the ultimate facts are not as bad as they appear, and that the whole thing could be sorted out and satisfactorily explained. Senate President Manny Villar seems confident the public would be reassured once the whole truth is known.
I would like to give the Senate leadership the benefit of the doubt.
However, I have some misgivings about the Senate on another issue --- how its members comply with their own Rules. I happen to believe that a deliberative assembly rises or falls on the basis of how its members follow its Rules. This usually determines how best they respond to the issues.
No member of Congress should treat the Rules cavalierly. It is a grave disorder when those in charge do not seem to notice when the Rules are violated, or when they themselves violate them. The dignity of the proceedings and of the institution itself is the first that suffers.
It was my concern as a student of parliamentary politics and a chairman of the Senate rules committee and Senate Majority Leader for many years that prompted me last July 28 to write the Senate a letter asking to be clarified on two not so small issues.
First, Section 13 of the Rules of the Senate provides that no bill or resolution shall be referred to more than two committees, except when it has an appropriations aspect, in which case it is referred also to the Finance committee or when it has a tax aspect, in which case it is referred also to Ways and Means.
In recent months many measures had been referred to more than three committees, in violation of this Rule.
Second, committee hearings were being held with only two senators present, regardless of the size of the committee. This was a clear violation of Rule 22 which says, “one-third of all regular members of the committee shall constitute a quorum, but in no case shall it be less than two.”
The last part of that Rule simply means that when a committee is so small that one third of its regular membership is fewer than two, the number should be rounded off to two. For all other committees, one-third of all the members should constitute a quorum. The committees were all apparently misreading this Rule.
Failing to get a reply, I wrote a second letter on September 1 to restate my query and to remind the Senate leadership that under Section 5 (a) of Republic Act 6713, otherwise known as Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, they were required to answer my letter “within fifteen working days from receipt thereof.”
Since they had failed to do so, the law has then been violated. And violation of the law carries a penalty of a fine not exceeding the equivalent of six months’ salary or suspension from office not exceeding one year or outright removal, depending on the gravity of the offense.
I was not interested in prosecuting but I wanted a ruling on the issues. The question of quorum had become suddenly more urgent after I had on August 11 attended a joint hearing of six committees of questionable validity. The six committees had a combined membership of 78, but only three were present in lieu of 26, when the hearing began. The primary committee alone needed at least four to constitute a quorum.
My worry is that if the primary committee decides to support passage of the bill in which I had intervened on the basis of the joint hearings held without a quorum I may have to question it in court. . I would like to avoid that, so I am hoping the Senate will act properly.
My query is not at all easy. The correct ruling will have to declare all big committee hearings with only two senators present null and void. But what would happen if the Supreme Court ruled on the issue? The same thing, except that the embarrassment would have been completely unnecessary.
Not many would be amazed if something like this happened in the House of Representatives or in some provincial or city council.. But somehow people seem to have higher expectations of the Senate.
I am hoping the ultimate facts are not as bad as they appear, and that the whole thing could be sorted out and satisfactorily explained. Senate President Manny Villar seems confident the public would be reassured once the whole truth is known.
I would like to give the Senate leadership the benefit of the doubt.
However, I have some misgivings about the Senate on another issue --- how its members comply with their own Rules. I happen to believe that a deliberative assembly rises or falls on the basis of how its members follow its Rules. This usually determines how best they respond to the issues.
No member of Congress should treat the Rules cavalierly. It is a grave disorder when those in charge do not seem to notice when the Rules are violated, or when they themselves violate them. The dignity of the proceedings and of the institution itself is the first that suffers.
It was my concern as a student of parliamentary politics and a chairman of the Senate rules committee and Senate Majority Leader for many years that prompted me last July 28 to write the Senate a letter asking to be clarified on two not so small issues.
First, Section 13 of the Rules of the Senate provides that no bill or resolution shall be referred to more than two committees, except when it has an appropriations aspect, in which case it is referred also to the Finance committee or when it has a tax aspect, in which case it is referred also to Ways and Means.
In recent months many measures had been referred to more than three committees, in violation of this Rule.
Second, committee hearings were being held with only two senators present, regardless of the size of the committee. This was a clear violation of Rule 22 which says, “one-third of all regular members of the committee shall constitute a quorum, but in no case shall it be less than two.”
The last part of that Rule simply means that when a committee is so small that one third of its regular membership is fewer than two, the number should be rounded off to two. For all other committees, one-third of all the members should constitute a quorum. The committees were all apparently misreading this Rule.
Failing to get a reply, I wrote a second letter on September 1 to restate my query and to remind the Senate leadership that under Section 5 (a) of Republic Act 6713, otherwise known as Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, they were required to answer my letter “within fifteen working days from receipt thereof.”
Since they had failed to do so, the law has then been violated. And violation of the law carries a penalty of a fine not exceeding the equivalent of six months’ salary or suspension from office not exceeding one year or outright removal, depending on the gravity of the offense.
I was not interested in prosecuting but I wanted a ruling on the issues. The question of quorum had become suddenly more urgent after I had on August 11 attended a joint hearing of six committees of questionable validity. The six committees had a combined membership of 78, but only three were present in lieu of 26, when the hearing began. The primary committee alone needed at least four to constitute a quorum.
My worry is that if the primary committee decides to support passage of the bill in which I had intervened on the basis of the joint hearings held without a quorum I may have to question it in court. . I would like to avoid that, so I am hoping the Senate will act properly.
My query is not at all easy. The correct ruling will have to declare all big committee hearings with only two senators present null and void. But what would happen if the Supreme Court ruled on the issue? The same thing, except that the embarrassment would have been completely unnecessary.
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